Con Calor

16 NOV 2009

Hola Family and Friends!

Hope you are all enjoying the cooler weather, because it is HOT down here! Definitely doesn’t feel like November and I can’t believe my first transfer is almost over! Hopefully I will get to spend one more transfer with Elder Spence, but who knows what transfer day will bring!

It’s always great to hear from all of you and I wish I had more time to write you all individually! Anyways, once again I am short on time, this time due to a shortened P-day. President wants us to get back to work earlier today because this Thursday we are going to miss a whole days worth of work to go to the Buenos Aires West mission to listen to Elder Bednar speak! Very exciting, and rumor has it that there could be a split in our mission (I don’t know if I had told you this yet or not). Anyways I will definitely tell you more about that next week!

This week we had the biggest rain storm yet, and all the streets were flooded. Of course we were outside when it hit, and I quickly learned that my rain coat is not really water proof, and it didn’t help that the water was up to my knees anyways (luckily none of my stuff in my backpack got ruined). As we were trenching through the river of water in the street, my foot was lucky enough to find a big hole that had been covered up by all the water, and my whole leg was submerged in the disgusting water. (One important thing to remember that adds to this story, mostly all the streets have "sanghas" which are basically ditches on the side of the street that function as sewers, SO, when you add that to all the garbage and dead animals in the streets, it makes for some pretty disgusting flood water.) My shoes are a little wet still, but other than that we survived! Also last night we were lucky enough to get back to the pension at 9 o clock to realize we were the only block to have our power go out. Luckily our water and gas stove still worked, and the mini maglite Aunt Kelly gave me sure came in handy! (Thank YOU!)

We had several meetings with our new Ward Mission Leader Hno. Molina this week. He was actually less active for the last year or so, but he has been very active lately. He is an awesome guy and very organized! Several days after we had given him our Progress Record he has already organized a plan with all the programs in the church (Relief Society, YW, Primary, Priesthood, etc.) to pass by less active members! This is greatly needed because there is a very large number of less active members in our area. Also, activating these members will be great for missionary work because most of them are families that live close to our investigators! So a lot of work to be done there. We also introduced him to Preach My Gospel, and he was very excited about that. It really is an amazing book that applies to everyone in the church! (I highly recommend chapter 2 and applying it to your scripture study!)

This week we got to go on Intercambios with the Zone Leaders. I went to their area in La Nuz, which was awesome! They live in an apartment downtown on the 7th floor, great view, also they have cool old school elevators where you have to pull the gate closed. Anyways, I learned a lot being with Elder Teerlink and got some really good practice. They have a very big area and we didn’t have much success, which helped me be grateful for our area in Fiorito.

We had several investigators at church this week, and one of them it was his second time coming so he could be baptized next week (Jorge Rodriguez)! All of them had a great experience and the talks couldn’t have been more perfect! During Sacrament meeting Jorge turned to me and asked me if it was ok if he prayed for a bit (we hadn’t explained to him much about what goes on in sacrament meeting, oops)! But of course I told him that is a great thing to do during the sacrament. He is very receptive to the spirit and talking to him after church he said he really wants to bring his whole family next time, so we will most likely wait until they all come so they can all be baptized together!

We also had a family show up at church that we have only visited twice! Our second visit with them they even fed us lunch! They have a lot of problems in their family, but they have a strong desire to repent and change their lives! They have shown great faith through their prayers and scripture reading as well as through attending church, and I am excited to see them progress! It’s amazing how the gospel can change people’s lives!

I have no idea when Thanksgiving is because they don’t celebrate it down here, but just to be safe HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Enjoy your day of turkey and I will continue to enjoy eating my beef CADA DIA!

¡Les Quiero Mucho!
Elder Ian Wheelhouse